Newton recently received a grant from the Maynard Cultural Council to develop the first part of the project called “River Spirits.”

Using poetry, natural sound, early music and performers, “River Spirits” will explore “the pre-history and the beginning of people being in Maynard and the settlers coming – almost like ghosts,” she said.

Newton and her husband moved to Maynard from Cambridge about 18 months ago, drawn by the art community and her son and his family who also live in Maynard.

“I live on the river and this came to me as a feeling of being visited by the spirits of the landscape,” she said.

In fact, Newton lives a mere eight feet from the river and said the sounds of splashing and geese playing in the morning led her to think of Native Americans and the people that came before.

“It came as a vision, sort of,” she said. “The water is such a big thing here, and the mill. The story is written in my outline – it’s really about the evocation of ghosts.”

She has assembled a group of local artists she calls “The Dreamscape Dance Project,” who will help turn her vision into reality.

The script is in flux, but Newton, who is the project's artistic director, envisions performers dressed in clothing of different eras appearing alongside early Maynard settlers.

“I’m making the choices and designing the project but I love to work in collaboration with people, which is one of the reasons I can’t tell you exactly what’s happening,” she said.

There will be singing without words, the sound of feet, the plucking of the banjo, which is one of the first instruments used, music and poetry.

“It’s modern dance, but it’s also movement,” she said. “I look at all movement as life, as dance.”

The music score will be filled with sounds of water, fire, rain, crickets, katydids, and explosions.

“As the performers come in they will be doing slow motion, they will be doing responses to something they hear, they will be looking at each other across time and then out of that will come a dancer who is coming out of the water, and will slowly manifest a dance,” she said.

She pictures people of different ages, sizes, ethnic background and language telling the story of “River Spirits.”

“I’m very driven to explore how human beings can not only get along but create new possibilities of specific living in joy,” Newton said.

The performance will take place in the ArtSpace Gallery where Newton will be artist-in-residence from July 10 to Aug. 4. There will be an open rehearsal, a discussion of arts in everyday living, a performance weekend, and a participatory event to discuss what was in the performance as well as to allow attendees to create some monologues and act out their own material.

She hopes residents will become involved in the performance.

“I am really interested in having people in the town who are interested in dancing or in being involved in some way – being interviewed, helping with costumes – anything like that, to contact me,” she said.